YAXEMEL, Mexico (AP) -- Four years after they fled the paramilitary gangs
that terrorized them, hundreds of rebel sympathizers returned to their
villages in the mountains of Chiapas state -- without a police escort, amid
hope for peace and fears for their safety.

The march of returning Indian villagers marked how far Chiapas has come since the
massacre of 45 Indians in the nearby hamlet of Acteal in 1997, and how far the
rebellion-torn state still has to go to surmount its political divisions and poverty.

With their meager belongings carried in sacks on their backs or aboard pickup
trucks, about 330 Tzotzil Indians trod muddy paths back to the villages they fled
shortly after the massacre.

"We are very happy because we get to return to our land," said a smiling Miguel
Gomez Guzman, 56. "We no longer have to fear the paramilitaries so much."

The column of peasants clutched children, dogs, chickens and farm tools as they
started their five-hour march -- some carried Mexican flags, or white flags
symbolizing peace. Others clutched banners of Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of
Guadalupe, or placards with images of local patron Saint Peter.

Despite the satisfaction of returning home, thousands of other refugees -- also
mainly rebel sympathizers -- remain in improvised camps nearby. And observers
warn that the danger is not over.

"The paramilitary aggression has not ended, though it is no longer as fierce in
intensity," wrote columnist Jose Montero in the newspaper La Jornada.

Roman Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who served as a mediator in peace talks with
the Zapatista rebels, said the safety of the returning refugees "is not fully assured,"
but noted their return should be seen as "a sign of peace and hope."

The refugees have signed a nonaggression pact with conservative neighbors in the
Chiapas township of Chenalho, where Acteal and their own villages of Puebla and
Yaxemel are located.

They declined a police escort, in part because police raids against paramilitary
outposts met violent opposition from Chenalho residents as recently as last year.

Instead, they were accompanied by state officials and human rights groups. Upon
arriving in Yaxemel, they lit candles and copal incense, and looked over the ruined
homes they had left four years before.

"Today, a new dawn begins for us," said Antonio Vazquez, the refugees' spokesman.
A banner posted on the local chapel read: "Welcome home, brothers and sisters."

Their exodus began on Dec. 22, 1997, when supporters of the former ruling party in
Chenalho shot and hacked to death 45 members of a Roman Catholic community
group known as "Las Abejas" in Acteal.

Las Abejas members in nearby villages fled after they were threatened, or were
commanded to pay "war taxes" to support the paramilitary gangs.

The gangs had at least the tacit support of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI, the party that governed both Chiapas state and Mexico as a whole for
71 years.

But Fox, who became the first opposition candidate to defeat the party in last year's
presidential election, promised to resolve the rebel conflict peacefully. Immediately
after taking office Dec. 1, he shut down military bases in Chiapas and gave
Congress an Indian rights bill backed by the rebels.

But the region's troubles have not disappeared. Although Congress and a majority of
Mexican states approved a watered-down version of the rights bill, the Zapatistas
flatly rejected it and refused to reopen talks with the government.

The Chiapas state government set up a series of health care stations to help the
returning villagers, and they were welcomed upon their arrival by Roman Catholic
Bishop Felipe Arizmendi.

"The devil is never still," Arizmendi said. "We cannot discount that some people may
still be against this process of peace and reconciliation."

Chiapas Gov. Pablos Salazar expressed hope that Tuesday's march would mark the
beginning of the return of other refugees.

"We have always though that expelling people, making them refugees," Salazar said,
"is just a slow way of killing them."

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.